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Far Away: Blues 1, Blackhawks 0

A valiant effort in the Chicago net wasn’t enough.

Posted on by L_B_R
(Photo by Rick Ulreich/Icon Sportswire)

Despite a heroic effort by Arvid Soderblom in net, the Chicago Blackhawks fell 1-0 to the St. Louis Blues on Thursday night in their final road game of the preseason.

After two scoreless periods, the Blues finally broke the ice 3:39 into the third with a slap shot from Calle Rosen. At 4-on-4, Pavel Buchnevich intercepted a backwards dropout pass on the breakout from Oliver Moore and got the puck to Connor McMichael, who tapped it to a streaking Rosen, who then hammered the puck past Soderblom to put St. Louis up 1-0.

The Blackhawks were unable to mount any meaningful comeback push, so 1-0 was the final score.

Notes:

As usual, there needs to be a caveat on this game considering it’s preseason and a chunk of the lineup wasn’t even NHL players. But, at some point, it’d be nice for the Blackhawks to be on the right side of the shot metrics for an entire game. The Blackhawks owned just 35.56 percent of the shot attempt share, 29.62 percent of the shots on goal, and 19.93 percent of the expected goals in the first 40 minutes. Granted, it wasn’t necessarily a high-event game either, especially when you factor in the number of penalties, but the lopsided shots aren’t encouraging. The third period was a bit closer, but they also played less than nine minutes at 5-on-5, so it’s almost not worth discussing. Just a bit too sloppy overall for the team to really get much going outside of a few players.

Now, while this wasn’t a particularly good game at the team level, there were bright spots individually.

First and foremost, Soderblom was excellent in net, bailing out the porous defense quite well — legitimately one of his most steady games. He controlled his rebounds decently, moved well side-to-side, seemed to be tracking the puck quite well, and more. He finished the game with 35 saves on 36 shots for a .972 save percentage: not too shabby. Soderblom has always been capable of performances like tonight, but it’s the lack of doing so consistently that’s held him back in the past. We’ll just have to see which Soderblom we get more of this season.

Patrick Kane’s passing seems to be the same quality it was the last time he was in a Blackhawks sweater, so that’s neat. He definitely has a nice connection with Roman Kantserov and Frank Nazar going on, and the trio were robbed of some good chances, but they also were definitely working through kinks on timing. When the rest of the team was underwater in terms of shots, the de facto top line had a slight edge in attempts (55.56 percent) and a larger edge in shots on goal (80 percent), although their expected goal share was low (24.76 percent). The latter is possibly going to happen more often considering the types of dangerous passes Kane has favored in recent years set up shots from farther out, but that’ll be something to track as the season progresses.

The negative about Kane, Kantserov and Nazar being on a line together is that they are arguably the three best play-drivers and playmakers on the team with Connor Bedard out. Oliver Moore is decent in that regard too, but more in a straightforward way than a creative one.

Speaking of Moore, he and Ryan Greene also had some good moments, though more from the former at 5-on-5 and the latter on the penalty kill. I’m not really sold on Moore’s shooting ability — he’s trying hard, but his shot hasn’t shown itself to be even NHL average at this point — but if he leans more into his playmaking this season, he could definitely increase his offensive output over last year. He had more than one passing play that either set up a teammate for a chance or should have. The main issue for Moore will be whether he’s on a line with shooters who can work with him. Perhaps that changes when Bedard is back and others are forced to move down the lineup but, right now, there is still a bit of a lack of depth when it comes to offense. Greene has always been smart and dogged, so it makes sense to up his time on the PK to maximize impact.

AJ Spellacy is always noticeable too, but he definitely does need some time to cook in Rockford. Also, this was not a headbutt, but, whatever:

If handedness wasn’t a concern, I’d think Korchinski would be a lock to play regularly among the top six defensemen — at least to start the season — over Sam Rinzel and possibly Artyom Levshunov (but more wiggle room there). He was the only one of the three who could get the puck moving up the ice with any level of effectiveness and was generally steady on defense. Obviously his game wasn’t perfect by any means, but it was solid enough otherwise, and he was great in the first preseason game. Though it should be noted we’re grading on a bit of a curve here considering the play hasn’t been particularly motivating in these few preseason games so far. Put him in the lighter offensive role, perhaps with veteran Ian Cole, and he could potentially shine.

Not the only one who thought so, either:

However, Korchinski not playing on the penalty kill could come into play. He did get some PK time in Rockford, but it was later in the rotation and that’s not really his bread and butter. On the other hand, Levshunov and Rinzel both played over five minutes on the penalty kill, and it was here where I noticed positives from the two. Levshunov’s aggressiveness suits the PK. He was mostly fine this game and his first game was better overall too, plus it’s understandable that he’s going to be playing a lot of minutes in the NHL this season. It might be better to be easing him in still, but that’s another topic completely. Rinzel shouldn’t necessarily be given an automatic bid in the same way, imo.

Also a little on the negative side, Anton Frondell and Nick Lardis still don’t make sense to me together unless their third is a play-driving passer. In the game with Tyler Bertuzzi and tonight with Ryan Greene, the line just did not work. Lardis can drive play himself a bit, but not the bulk of it for a line, and that’s always been a problem area for Frondell. So, either having someone with them who can shoulder some of that responsibility or breaking them up may make more sense. Honestly, Nazar might be the best option, but the team seems to want both Nazar and Frondell at center, so who knows how it’ll all shake out. The good news is there are more pieces to shuffle around that could work this season than in the previous few, so there’s a level of excitement there, at least to me.

This was probably too much for a preseason game, honestly. As mentioned in the preview, this is a young group with a lot of new players, so there are going to be some kinks to work out, and we shouldn’t hold a non-real game against them too much. So, take all this with that caveat in mind and hope that by the 20-game mark, the team will have worked through some problems and come out more cohesive — and maybe they’ll learn to take less penalties too.

Game Charts

Three Stars

  1. Callen Rosen (STL) — goal
  2. Arvid Soderblom (CHI) — .972 save percentage on 36 shots
  3. Jordan Binnington (STL) — shutout on 17 shots

What’s Next

The Blackhawks play their last preseason game on Saturday, hosting the St. Louis Blues for a rematch at 6 p.m.

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